Sorry for posting the final chapter late, I had another friend pass away. 3 friends gone since Christmas, plus me being hospitalized. (I'm okay now) It's been rough. So here's the conclusion of the story.. Comments are really appreciated!
It took awhile but the information came back on the Cardinal and it wasn't what Solo had expected.
Apparently the man, when he was a young priest, had been involved with some sort of scandal involving a boy, the details of which had been covered up by the church.
That information was distasteful to Napoleon; the idea that any man of God, especially one who might be deemed worthy of possibly being elevated to Pope could be guilty of such depravity was disturbing.
There were rumors that always abounded about priests, Solo chose not to believe them as they were hearsay, with no truth to back them. Still, he supposed anything was possible. Having been raised Catholic, his beliefs in the church were strong, but now they had been shaken.
It was something with which he have to wrestle, but not right now; he had to focus on the mission.
Voting continued into a second day ad nauseum, with no clear majority, though the number of candidates were narrowing as predicted to the three Italians.
The ritual of the folded ballot being placed upon the silver paten and slipped into the silver and gold chalice was repeated again and again. Yet there was still no sign of Santoro or Minnelli doing anything.
Up to four rounds of voting were allowed each day after the first day, and a two-thirds majority were needed in order for a pope to be elected.
Illya leaned towards his partner, whispering to him.
"If no one is elected after three days, by Friday afternoon the voting pauses for up to one day. It resumes and if no pope is elected after another seven ballots, there is another pause, and so on until twelve days of balloting have passed."
"Twelve days?" Napoleon swallowed hard; his Catholic upbringing had prepared him for some of this... but twelve days?
"Do you not know the proceedings of your own church my friend?"
"Well yes, but not quite in this detail. I don't think I've been this celibate in my...well in a really long time."
"Really Napoleon, it has only been three days." Kuryakin allowed himself the briefest of wry smiles.
"It feels like a lifetime to me, my nonlibidoist friend."
"Trust me, my libido is doing just fine. I have it under control," Illya shot back.
"Oh and I don't?"
"Have your little black book with you, in your luggage perhaps?"
Solo cringed. "Yeah I do, but it's not like I'm using it."
"At the moment," Illya sneered.
"Well given the circumstances, it really wouldn't be possible would it tovarisch? I'm pretty sure I'll survive."
"One could only hope," Illya stared straight ahead, his face now expressionless.
The next round of votes were tallied and finally there was a clear winner... too clear. It was nearly unanimous, Cardinal Sirano would be Pope
Not a surprise to the UNCLE agents, though there seemed in the discussions that Siriano wasn't the favorite, and for him to have suddenly won by such a large majority of votes seemed highly improbable.
Just how Santoro and Minelli managed it, Napoleon and Illya had no clue. Siriano's assistants were never near the ballots at any time.
The cardinals were more than willing to accept the results, after all they had faith in their abilities to judge who was suitable to next lead the Catholic church. They had faith in the age old system they used in order to arrive at their choice, thinking it was tamper proof.
"Still a nearly unanimous vote?" Napoleon whispered to Illya."The tallies of all the previous votes showed no inclination towards Siriano. I didn't hear anyone pushing for him, did you?"
Illya merely shook his head. His mind was racing as to how to halt the proceedings.
As the ballots were prepared to be burned in order to send up the white smoke, signaling a new Pope had been elected, Cardinal Wiśniewski stood and spoke up.
Illya had whispered to the Cardinal to trust him and demand a show of hands as to who voted for Siriano in order to halt the burning of the ballots.
The scientist in the Russian was trying to figure out what Santoro and Minnelli had meant abouts the ballots being 'ready.' What could have been done to them, and when?
The master of the liturgical ceremonies protested but Wiśniewski insisted, Cardinal Spellerman joined him as did others who knew they did not vote for Siriano. A mere headcount of those who voted for a different candidate would prove something was amiss.
Cardinal Siriano protested with great fervor as did the scrutineers.
"The count was valid and the ballots do not lie," they insisted.
Wiśniewski and Spellerman called out, "Who voted for this man? We demand a show of hands."
Barely a half dozen hands were raised, sending shockwaves throughout the conclave. Whispers rose to a cacophony of protests that echoed within the chapel.
Illya and Napoleon approached the scrutineers, asking two other cardinals as well a Spellerman and Wiśniewski if they would please bear witness.
Though the scrutineers protested a conclavist touching the ballots, Kuryakin and Solo went through the papers one by one.
Sure enough the majority of them had the name of Siriano written on them, oddly though, they were all written in the same handwriting.
Illya pointed that out to the witnesses and the scrutineers, questioning how that could be? Seconds later he snapped his fingers, realizing what had been done.
He requested a blank ballot and a pen that one of the Cardinals had used and wrote the name of Wiśniewski on the paper, folding it as would have been when the ballot was cast.
He placed it in the chalice, covered it with the paten and gave it a shake. Removing the paper, he reopened it and found that Cardinal Wiśniewski's name had disappeared and the name of Siriano was now there, again with the same handwriting as the other ballots.
"These papers have been tampered with; I suspect they were chemically treated, as well as the ink in the pens. I think the silver of the chalice activated the chemicals and caused the original names written in a disappearing ink to fade and the already written name of Siriano in some form of invisible ink appear."
The Cardinals were beside themselves and in the end Siriano and his conclavists were escorted to their quarters and kept under guard.
There was no way to point a finger at the scrutineers so nothing was said about them either by Spellerman, Wiśniewski, or the UNCLE agents. Another trio of scrutineers were selected again at random.
A new round of voting began, this time on plain pieces of paper that were sent in from the outside by the Camerlengo and delivered to Cardinal Spellerman via the pass through window in the dining area. The votes were written in pencil instead of using the pens.
The results of the first four ballots were signaled with black smoke at 11:54 am and 5:47 pm.
Some reform-minded Cardinals initially voted for Leo Joseph Suenens of Mechelen-Brussels and Franz König of Vienna to make the point that the pope did not have to be Italian.
Other conservative cardinals attempted to block Montini's election in the early balloting. Due to the apparent deadlock; Cardinal Montini proposed to withdraw himself from being considered but was silenced by Giovanni Urbani the Patriarch of Venice.
Another Cardinal, Gustavo Testa, an old friend of John XXIII, lost his temper and demanded that the intransigeants stop impeding Montini's path.
By the fourth ballot Montini needed only four additional votes to obtain the required number.
At last on the fifth ballot on the morning the quiet Cardinal Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini had been elected Pontiff.
When asked if he accepted his election, Montini replied, Accepto, in nomine Domini - I accept, in the name of the Lord."
The papers were burned in the stove with the proper chemicals added, and smoke appeared to the masses waiting outside in St. Peter's Square.
At 11:22 am, the white smoke rose from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, signifying the election of a new pope.
The new Pontiff would take the name Pope Paul the VI.
The new Pope was escorted to his new quarters where he donned the appropriate attire of a new Pontiff.
Alfredo Ottaviani, in his capacity as the senior Cardinal Deacon, announced Montini's election in Latin; before he had even finished saying Montini's name, the crowd beneath the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica erupted into applause.
Once Pope Paul VI was revealed on the balcony facing out to St. Peter's Square, cheers went up at his arrival and his benediction was given.
It was finally over for Napoleon and Illya and they breathed a sigh of relief along with Cardinals Spellerman and Wiśniewski.
The vow of silence the agents had taken regarding the goings on within the papal conclave of 1963 would forever remain secret.
For the Cardinals it was a given, but to Napoleon and Illya it was a conscious decision. Their presence as operatives of the U.N.C.L.E. had to be forever hidden in order to protect the election results. However, their vow to keep secret regarding what took place within the Sistine Chapel would still be a bit problematic for them, to say the least.
They met for the last time at the Vatican in Cardinal Spellerman's quarters before all of them would be returning home. This time they were joined by April Dancer, and for proprieties' sake the three agents were still wearing their religious garb.
Napoleon swore however, he'd be back to civilian wear for the flight home.
"A job well done gentleman, and to you as well Miss Dancer, Spellerman poured a round of drinks for them, scotch, as well as vodka he'd had brought in for Illya and his friend Szymon.
"Hear hear!" They all said, before clinking their glasses together.
"And a toast to the Papacy of Paul VI," Spellerman said." We have great hopes for this new shepherd and what he will do for his flocks around the world."
The all raised their glasses one more time.
"So Mr. Kuryakin, what do you think of the Catholic church, and its ornate trappings that is?" Spellerman asked.
Napoleon held his breath, hoping Illya would mind his p's and q's.
"The piety and devotion were most rituals reminded me of when I was a young boy attending Orthodox church at St. Andrew's in Kyiv. To say the least it was all most beautiful."
"Changed your mind about God perhaps, surely you felt His Presence in the Sistine Chapel?
"I felt something, but I cannot say for sure what it was."
"Well young man, perhaps that's a start." Spellerman held out his hand to the Russian this time and doing as Napoleon had done when they'd first met the Cardinal, Illya knelt and kissed his ring. It was the proper thing to do.
He and Napoleon and April did the same with Cardinal Wiśniewski before bidding their farewells."
"And I'll see you next Sunday for mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Napoleon,"Cardinal Spellerman winked at Solo.
"I'll try my best your Eminence, but if duty calls…"
"I understand my son," he made the sign of the cross and Napoleon immediately blessed himself.
As they retreated from the Vatican, Solo questioned his partner.
"So tovarisch, in the Sistine Chapel, you really felt something?"
"Yes, it was absolute boredom. I hope to never witness another Papal Conclave again as long as I live."
Napoleon laughed," Honestly, me too."
"You were bored? I was stuck in a kitchen all day with a bunch of penguins who were the worst conversationalists I'd ever met," April laughed.
"Penguins?" Illya asked. "You were at a zoo?"
Napoleon belly laughed at that one. "No Illya, that's a nickname that people sometimes use to refer to nuns because of their habits often being black and white."
"Oh...interesting," Kuryakin nodded, but managed to shrug his indifference.
Before they left Rome, they found out that Siriano was to be dealt with by the Vatican, though he wasn't arrested.
He'd been reminded of his oath not to reveal what had happened there in the conclave.
Siriano would be sent off into forced retirement, though not new pope was a gentle and more than forgiving man in regards to the matter.
Illya suspected it was Siriano himself who jabbed him in the neck with that syringe, though again there was no proof. One could only hope it was him, otherwise there was another Thrushie unaccounted for.
However, other than the vow, what was said to Siriano to maintain the secrecy of the conclave and never to be spoken of publicly of what had happened was not revealed to Solo and Kuryakin.
They supposed it was in his best interests to remain silent, not because of the vow he took, but because of his involvement with THRUSH.
The Masters of the Ceremonies who prepared the ballots bearing the word. Eligo in Summum Pontificem were later questioned but were deemed innocent of any wrongdoing.
The church had found no proof positive who had tampered with the ballots.
The UNCLE agents couldn't reveal Siriano's conclavists were actually the culprits and servants of THRUSH, without giving away their own identities and possibly negating the entire election process of Cardinal Montini.
Napoleon and Illya weren't priests after all, yet they'd born witness to the inner workings of the most sacred of events within the Catholic church and had to abide by the oath of secrecy they swore. That was their decision, now as to how they'd handle the matter in their report to Mister Waverly would require a bit of strategy.
Siriano being a member of the Hierarchy since its inception was doubtful, but he was most likely recruited and moved up the ranks, waiting for the next opportunity for him to assume the mantle of Pontiff, with THRUSH's help since his previous attempt to be elected pope in 1958 had failed.
The UNCLE agents had to take satisfaction in preventing a THRUSH puppet from being elected pope and that would have to do.
It wasn't until afterwards that rumors began to fly again about Siriano having been elected but then deposed for another to assume the papal throne just as it had happened in the 1958 Papal election.
When asked, Cardinal Siriano denied it and was quotes as saying, "The vow of secrecy is inviolable. I will say no more."
Upon their return from Rome to New York, Solo, Kuryakin and Dancer were made aware that Cardinal Sirano, along with both his assistants had died in a tragic accident; their car had gone off the road on the Stelvio Pass in the Italian Alps. No one survived.
There was no THRUSH chatter on this one, making Napoleon and Illya wonder if it had been them, or the Vatican who'd might taken care of Siriano. The accident seemed all too convenient. Still, THRUSH generally didn't like to broadcast their failures.
The idea that the church might be capable of murder was something Solo didn't care to dwell upon; after the things he'd learned, he was now wrestling with the sanctity of the church. Thought he reminded himself of the infamous Borgias as well as the Medici's involvement with the papacy. Libertine behavior, nepotism, intrigues, orgies and skulduggery took place during the pontificates of seven infamous popes.
Then again, Napoleon reminded himself, that the church was controlled by men and men were fallible. According to church dogma there was the matter of papal infallibility, which 'preserved the pope from the possibility of error in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians.'
Still he wasn't quite sure about that now, as the Pope was just a man. Thinking that was blasphemy, but then again Solo reminded himself that he was a spy and had to sometimes kill people for a living, so that blasphemous thought wasn't all that terrible by comparison.
Napoleon snickered to himself, thinking he was probably going to hell anyway. Still, in his heart he couldn't help but ask for forgiveness. What he did as an U.N.C.L.E. agent was for the greater good.
Kuryakin on the other hand, saw the Catholic church as something of a monstrosity, lost in its endless decadence and ceremony like Maurits Escher's lithograph 'Relativity.' It depicts a world in which the normal laws of gravity do not apply. The architectural structure seems to be the centre of an idyllic community, with most of its inhabitants casually going about their ordinary business, oblivious to the rest of the world.
The Vatican was a world unto itself, an incongruous juxtaposition of piety and politics, with backdoor dealings, manipulations and threats as much as part of the daily routine as mass.
It wasn't squeaky clean by any means. Though it was a religious icon and above reproach, it was still involved men who had their weaknesses and frailties. That was something both the American and Russian agreed upon.
Napoleon and Illya filed a very short report with the Old Man upon their return to New York, leaving out the details of what exactly took place in the conclave, staying true to the vow of silence to which they'd been sworn. That was their decision on how to best keep their word.
Solo figured since it was an oath to God, it superseded his oath to UNCLE. Illya on the other hand kept quiet merely because he was a man of his word and not a breaker of oaths. To him, remaining silent in this case didn't interfere with his oath to the Command.
The partners sat in their shared office, catching up on some of the paperwork they'd abandoned before leaving for Rome. Well actually it was Illya doing the work, with his thin fingers typing away, 'clackity-clack' on his keyboard.
Napoleon was thumbing through his little black book while taking a break from sorting through his own pile of papers.
"Lining up your dates already?"Illya asked.
"What do you think?" His partner smiled.
Lisa Rogers' voice came over the public address system interrupting their conversation.
"Mr. Solo and Mr. Kuryakin, please report to Mr. Waverly's conference room immediately."
Napoleon was the first to pick up the black house phone.
"On our way."
They arrived in only a few minutes and were instructed to be seated at the oversized round table, opposite Mr. Waverly.
After reading their report on the Vatican Affair, the Old Man seemed a bit concerned and had requested their presence to go over what he suspected to be quite a bit of missing information.
"Mr. Solo given the gravity of this assignment, I find it odd that your report is exceedingly brief."
"What can I say sir, it was all pretty complicated given the ritual through which a pope is elected; it wasn't until after several rounds of voting that Cardinal Montini was selected. The man we suspected of being involved with THRUSH never stood a chance at winning."
Waverly seemed perplexed." And how did you surmise it was Cardinal Siriano and not this Montini fellow who was THRUSH?"
"It was the conclavists for Siriano who gave their Cardinal away, inadvertently," Illya said. "I heard them whispering in the lavatory." He figured that wasn't under the auspices of the conclave, it being only the loo. Still he didn't say exactly what he'd heard to Mr. Waverly.
"How the devil was Siriano not elected then since that was THRUSH's apparent plan?"
"It was Cardinals Spellerman and Wiśniewski who orchestrated the push; they pleaded a strong case for Montini and were able to sway the others," Napoleon responded, though it was in good part a lie.
"Other than that bit of political maneuvering the whole process of electing a Pope was quite tedious," Illya added. "One can only stare at the Sistine Chapel or read a bible for so long."
"Hmm," Waverly frowned before proceeding to tap his pipe bowl into the crystal ashtray in front of himself, emptying the contents.
"Why do I suspect you gentlemen are over simplifying this entire affair?"
"Mr. Waverly, the ceremonies, rituals and prayers as well as the bourgeois decadence of the Catholic church are so completely complex that if we wrote every little detail of what took place during the conclave, then we would have enough information to compose a rather uninteresting novel," Illya deadpanned.
"Yes sir, Scout's honor on that," Napoleon nodded. His look was as deadpan as his partner's.
Alexander Waverly knew he was being had on this one, but since the results were favorable, he saw it as pointless to pursue the matter further.
"Very well gentlemen. Seeing as how this assignment was so enervating, I have one for you that should be a little less tiresome. Pack your suitcases for a colder climate. I'm sending you to a monastery in in Switzerland. I want you to check on the welfare of the Abbot there who is a friend of mine.
"A monastery?" Napoleon swallowed hard.
"Yes Mr. Solo visiting it might be good for you as it were. Plenty of good fresh mountain air, at least you won't be locked up like you were in the Sistine Chapel. You are still in celibate mode after being in the Vatican, aren't you?" There was a twinkle in Waverly's eyes upon saying that.
"Your flight leaves at eight this evening, that will give you time to pack and get a little rest before you depart, and oh bring me back a case of Aquitaine from Abbot John upon your return, if you please? A delicious aperitif made by the Monks of St Thomas.*
Illya not missing a beat, flashed his partner a sly look as they headed out the door.
Walking side by side, Napoleon looked at his wristwatch
"What is going on in that head of yours my friend?" Illya asked."Wait, forget it, I know what is on your mind."
"Oh becoming a mind reader now?"
"No but I am a student of the Solo condition I suppose."
Napoleon shrugged. "Well it's been a while and I do have time."
"You my friend are beyond incorrigible."
"Te futueo et caballum tuum," Napoleon made his retort in Latin.
"Fac ut gaudeam!" Illya dared him.
That made Solo burst out laughing,"I have still have an itch and Candy Sweets is going to scratch it for me" Napoleon grinned as he headed in the direction of the Map Room. This time of day he knew she'd be there. And how sweet she is," he called as he disappeared around the corner.
All Kuryakin could do was roll his eyes; he'd lost count at how many times he'd done that little maneuver.
The word incorrigible suddenly seemed insufficient in reference to his partner.
Illya decided to find a better one and that sent him back to their office to pull out his Thesaurus…
"Hmmm," he set the heavy book on his desk top with a thud and began to read words aloud. " Hardened, abandoned, beastly, incurable, intractable, inveterate, irredeemable, irreparable, recidivist, uncorrectable, unreformed, wicked."
Wicked, and incurable seemed the best, but at the moment Illya couldn't decide between the two.
.
.
* ref to The Monks of St. Thomas Affair.
Te futueo et caballum tuum - translates to : 'Screw you, and the horse you rode in on.'
Fac ut gaudeam -translates to:'Make my day.'